The Black Ship
by Lord-Skarik
Summary: Tobias was born a Psyker. This is the story of how he was taken from home by one of the infamous Black Ships.


The Black Ship

Part I: Growing Up

Tobias had always had strong psychic abilities, ever since birth. It had started the day after he was born. His parents brought him home, both of them very happy and content with the birth of their son. His father gave him a pat on the head, and had been bit by a particularly nasty shock. The shock had been that of static electricity, which had been worsened by the planet's high electrical atmosphere.

Tobias' parents, being very superstitious, and not believing in such natural explanations, had immediately taken their new, yet to be named son to be tested as a Psyker. It had been pure coincidence that his parents found out about their son's psychic abilities, but the fact that they knew at all was enough to bring distrust and dislike.

Tobias didn't remember any of that, but he did remember the pain of being an outcast. Once branded an emerging Psyker by the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, most become pariahs. They were feared, hated, and shunned.

Because Tobias was just a small child, it was easy for people to take some pity. So, though he wasn't liked, he was never shunned or outcast. However, it was still a hard life. He had no friends, and his parents were constantly disappointed with their child.

Much of the planet was used for agriculture. The people would go out independently and start their own farms. Seventy-five percent of what the farmers made was collected by large transport vehicles at every town, and taken to the planet's capitol. The towns were also a place to purchase materials, food, and other various things. The town nearest Tobias' homestead had a small school, where children could be sent to learn basic subjects, as well as to be instructed in drill.

It was to this school that Tobias was sent, and spent most of his time. He had no friends there, and the teacher completely ignored him. He spent his breaks alone, sitting in the shade of the few trees that grew near the back of the small schoolhouse. He never understood why nobody would talk to him, or play with him.

Tobias lack of physical excercise, coupled with him never eating very much, left the boy scrawny and weak. But what he lacked in physique, he made up for with mental abilities. Even without the help of the teacher, Tobias excelled at his schoolwork. He always understood what the teacher taught to the class, and he would have his homework finished and turned in the day it was given to him; not that the teacher ever looked at it.

When Tobias was 14 years old, a new girl came to the school. Her family had left their busy lives in the hive to become farmers in the country. Her name was Veronica, and she was only 4 months younger than Tobias. The first day he saw her, he fell in love with her. He figured that if she was new, she wouldn't know that nobody liked Tobias. He watched her for a few days. And then for a few weeks. It wasn't until she had been at the school for two months before he finally worked up the nerve to approach her.

It was after school one day, and she was walking home. She and Tobias would walk the same path for about thirty minutes before it split, and she would go the other direction. But Tobias had never walked with her before, he always made sure he stayed just far enough away that he could admire her without her knowing he was there. Today was the day Tobias decided he was going to walk with her.

He started walking behind her, about ten steps. They walked that way for about eight minutes before she stopped and turned around.

"Why are you following me?" Veronica asked Tobias.

"This is the way I walk to my homestead." Tobias responded. His voice was rough, yet soft at the same time, as a result of not speaking out loud very often.

"How come I've never seen you walk down this path before?" Veronica asked him.

"I always made sure to let you start walking first." He responded.

There was a long pause before she said anything. She appeared to be looking over Tobias, judging him and deciding something.

"Why do you always sit alone, without anything to say?" She finally asked.

"People don't really like me around here." Tobias said after a short, shameful pause.

"Why is that?" She demanded.

"I don't know." He stated. "Is it alright if I walk with you?" He asked her.

She smiled, a big bright beautiful smile. Then she turned around. She stood there with her back to Tobias for a few seconds before she turned her head and said to him, "Come on then, don't be shy!"

Tobias had made his first friend. They would walk down that path together, Veronica talking to

Tobias about whatever popped into her head, while he just listened, happy to have someone to listen to. This went on for a year or so. Every day after school they would walk to the "Parting Place" as they called it, and Veronica would say, "Goodbye, I'll see you tomorrow!" Tobias would wave to her, with a smile, and then they would part ways and walk to their own homes.

When Tobias turned 16, he decided to walk Veronica home instead of parting ways with her. That day, as they walked, there was a lull in Veronica's chatter. Tobias seized the opportunity.

"Would you mind if I walked you home today?" He asked her. His voice was no longer weak. It was still soft, but he used it often enough now that he could speak clearly.

Veronica blushed. Her normally smooth, tanned face burned bright red. She brushed her silky brown hair out of her face. "Of course not, I'd love it!" She finally worked up the nerve to say. Then, a bit awkwardly, she hugged him. Tobias had never been embraced by anyone before, but he enjoyed the feeling of safety and comfort. He hugged her back.

That day, and every day after he would walk her home. They would reach the edge of Veronica's property, just out of sight of the house, and then she would hug him, and they would say their goodbyes, and Tobias would walk home, a smile on his face.

It was one of these days that Tobias came home to his father waiting for him. This was an odd occurrence, as Tobias' parents rarely interacted with him, just leaving him some food on the table every morning.

"Tobias. Where were you?" His father asked him.

"I've been walking home from school." Tobias responded.

"Hm." His father grunted. "It's never taken you this long to walk before."

Tobias thought for a bit before responding. He wasn't sure if he should tell his father about

Veronica. He decided it was best to leave her a secret.

"There's a fruit tree growing off the path a ways, I've been stopping to eat from it." Tobias lied to his father.

His father turned without another word and began walking off. Tobias held his hand out and said, "Father, wait, I have a question!"

His father stopped.

"Father, why does everybody ignore me?" Tobias asked. It had taken him years to work up the courage to ask that question.

Quickly, his father turned, his face contorted with rage. He quickly made his way over to

Tobias and smacked the boy across the face hard enough to knock Tobias down.

"It's because you had to screw up our lives, with your damned Psyker label!" His father turned and stormed away.

Tobias lay on the ground, absorbing what had just happened. As he thought about what his father had said, it began to make sense. It explained why things seemed to happen around him when nobody was around. Why out of reach objects would mysteriously make it to his hand. Why it seemed that he could hear what people were thinking sometimes.

He began to wonder what else he could do. He wasn't sure how to activate the power, it always happened on its own accord... or whenever he concentrated hard enough. "That's it." He said aloud to himself, expressionless. His face stung from the slap, but he got over it quickly as he stood and started walking to his room.

His room was bare, only a bed and a few boxes that Tobias had found to put his meager supply of things in. He strode across the small room and sat on his bed, his back resting against the wall. He began to concentrate. He studied his room quickly to find something to practice on. Deciding on an old stick he used to play with, sitting in the corner of the room, he reached for it. He concentrated as hard as he could, willing the stick to come to his hand.

It seemed harder to do when you were trying, he realized to himself. But he did not give up. Continuing on for almost an hour he sat there, willing the stick to move. Finally, after what seemed like forever, it moved to his hand. Not lightning fast, but not slow either. Tobias never felt like he saw it move, to him it just seemed like it had suddenly been in his hand.

He was rather pleased with himself, and a bit proud of his newly discovered powers. He berated himself for never realizing before, how could he have been so stupid as to not realize his own abilities? He looked for something else to move. This time a blanket, the very same that he had been brought home in when he had been born.

Once more he reached for the blanket, and once more he willed it to move with his mind. This time the blanket came much sooner. Tobias continued to practice moving things with his thoughts. By the end of the day, he was completely exhausted. He looked outside, saw the dark of night, and laid down, falling asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

So his life continued on like that. Every day he would go to school, meeting Veronica at the old parting place, and walking with her to the schoolhouse. They would sit through school together, and enjoy each other's company. Then at the end of school they would back to Veronica's house, where they would part with a hug, and sometimes a kiss on the cheek. Then Tobias would walk home, go to his room, and start practicing working with his abilities.

As Tobias grew older, his pariah status worsened. He was now officially shunned by most people, and everybody hated him. Because Veronica spent her time with him, she was also seen in a negative light, though she didn't know why. Behind their backs, the people in the town would say, "There goes the demon-bringer, and his heretic witch."

Even though the two were despised, they loved each other, and found comfort in each other's company, to the point where it didn't matter that nobody else liked them.

Tobias' life was not easy, but he put up with it, so that every day he could see Veronica, and he could practice with the joys of his psychic abilities. His wretched existence never seemed that wretched to him.

Part II: The Ship

It was one day, when Tobias was walking into town when he overheard a few of the townsfolk talking amongst themselves. "It'll be good riddance once the Black Ship finally gets rid of him." One man was saying. A woman in the group piped up. "Yeah, and maybe they'll take his witch too!" The group snickered amongst themselves. Tobias walked on.

He wasn't sure what they meant. He had never heard of a "Black Ship" and didn't know why it would take him away. So he tucked it into a pocket of his memory, and went to school. During one of the breaks that day, Tobias and Veronica were sitting under the shade of the trees growing in the back of the schoolhouse.

Tobias turned his head to Veronica and asked, "Have you ever heard of a 'Black Ship'?"

Veronica picked at the ground. Clearly the question had made her uncomfortable.

"Yes, I have." She said.

"What is it? And what does it do?" Tobias asked.

"It's a big, black ship that comes every hundred years to take all of the Psykers, and bring them to Holy Terra." She responded.

Tobias frowned. Why would they do that? He thought to himself. He couldn't understand why that would happen, so he asked Veronica another question.

"Why do they take the Psykers there?" He questioned.

"Nobody really knows, but it's a great relief when one of the black ships come to take all the Pskyers away. Psykers are dangerous, so they say. If one of them tries to use their powers without proper training, it could attract the attention of one of the foul demons of Chaos, and the demon would take the Psyker and use them for terrible things." Veronica explained to Tobias.

Tobias remained silent. For a long time he had been working out how to tell Veronica about his psychic abilities, but after she told him what she knows about Psykers, he decided it would be best to keep it a secret.

That day after school, as they walked home, Tobias' mind was too busy to focus on everything Veronica was saying. Not that it showed; as far as Veronica knew he was listening to her talk just as he did every day. They walked to her house, and Tobias thoughts were busy and scrambled. He wondered about how to address his Psyker problem, and his thoughts also dwelled on the Black Ships. He finally made a decision.

The two made it to the outskirts of Veronicas house. She hugged him, and kissed his cheek, and just before they said goodbye, Tobias grabbed her shoulders.

"Veronica," He began, "I want to run away with you. Nobody likes me, and because of that, the town has started to dislike you as well. We should just run away, and build our own house, just you and me."

Veronica was surprised. She had not expected Tobias to ask her to elope. But she was pleased, because she had fantasized about the idea many a day. She smiled, and then she kissed Tobias. Not on the cheek, but on the lips. It was not awkward, as many first kisses are, but it was beautiful. They hugged again, and she whispered, "Let's do it. When?"

Tobias thought for a second. "Tomorrow. We'll both pack plenty of food and supplies tonight, and then tomorrow, instead of going to school, we'll run away!"

They said goodbye, and Tobias left for home. He was excited. He was only 17, but he was about to start his own life. He started running home. When he made it home, he immediately began packing food rations, clothing, and other useful items into a knapsack. He hid it under his bed, and sat there with butterflies in his stomach, until nightfall came and he laid down to sleep.

What Tobias did not know, was that the Imperialis Regalis had come into orbit the day before.

A black ship.

It is a strange and uncomfortable feeling to be woken by your door being kicked in. Tobias was very groggy when the uniformed men stormed into his room in the middle of the night, and took him. Dazed and confused, he sat in the vehicle the men had put him in. It was a bumpy ride, which lasted for several hours.

He was watched by several armed soldiers, members of the Imperial Guard. Tobias was still tired, and wished for sleep, but the ride was too uncomfortable, and there was no suitable place in the vehicle to rest his head. Every so often, the vehicle would stop, and most of the guards would leave. When they came back there would be another prisoner. Some of the prisoners were men. Some were women. Some were old, and some were as young as a small child.

There was no communication between the prisoners, most were too tired and confused to bother, and any others were shouted at by the soldiers if they tried to talk. One of the prisoners, an older man, tried to stand, and was beat down by two of the Guardsmen.

After several more long hours of sitting uncomfortably on the metal floor of the transport, it finally came to a stop. The prisoners were unloaded into a small corridor. Balconies overlooked the corridor, and on those balconies stood massive amazon women wearing some sort of power armor. They walked back and forth, observing the prisoners and occasionally talking to one another.

Suddenly, a door at the end of the corridor opened and a man walked out, flanked by an odd retinue. Two of the amazon warriors, and a hunched man who relied on a large staff to walk. The leading man stepped forward. He was wearing a uniform, and stood tall and intimidating. He addressed the prisoners. "I am Inquisitor Veragus, and you are all being detained for your status as Pyskers. You will be brought aboard the Black Ship Imperialis Regalis, and you will be brought to Holy Terra, where your fate will be determined."

The Inquisitor and his retinue turned, and walked back through the door they came from. The Guardsmen standing behind the huddled mass of prisoners put on their gasmasks, and a gas began to mist from holes in the walls of the corridor.

Tobias tried to hold his breath as long as he could, while all around him the prisoners started to collapse. He cleared his mind and tried to access his powers to clear the gas from around him. He didn't expect one of the Guardsmen to come forward and rifle-butt Tobias in the back of the head. Tobias fell, and he lost his concentration. As the gas crowded around him and invaded his mouth and nostrils, his vision started to fade to black, and he succumbed to the sleep.

Tobias woke, once again, to a strange environment. He was crammed into a medium sized holding pen, with about forty other people. He still wore his sleeping garments, and it appeared that most of the other prisoners were also wearing only what they usually wore to bed. A few unlucky people sat miserably, lacking either pants, or a shirt, and in some cases both.

Tobias stood, and looked around. The lights were dim, and a constant and annoyingly loud buzzing sound rang out, changing pitch and tone every so often. He and his fellow prisoners were kept on metal flooring, cold and uncomfortable. They were surrounded by metal bars, stretching up about thirty feet. Ringing the tops of the bars were wide catwalks, which were occupied by several armed Guardsmen, and two or three of the amazon women from before.

He started to walk towards the cage walls, and stumbled. He realized he felt very weak, and that it was hard to concentrate on anything. He looked around at the people around him once again, and realized he was gone. Tears filled his eyes, and sobs shook his weak body. He thought about his room. It was never much of a home, but now that it was gone, he missed it more than ever. He thought about his family, who had hated him for years. They never took care of him, and treated him terribly, but he missed them now that he knew he would never see them again.

Most of all though, he thought about Veronica. The only person who had ever shown him kindness. The only person willing to speak to him. He thought about how they were going to elope the next day, or was it today? His heart ached as he thought about how she would be waiting for him, and how he would never come to sweep her off her feet.

Anger, rage, and frustration tore through Tobias. He had always been able to suppress such feeling before, but not now. He screamed, at the top of his lungs, a guttural, horrid sound that caused the Guardsmen above to clench their hands to their ears, and the prisoners around Tobias to squirm and moan. So badly he wanted to unleash his power, the power that made people hate him, power that he had tried to keep hidden, power that he had started practicing. He tried to release it at the men above him, but for some reason, he couldn't. He tried as hard as he could, but he couldn't make it work.

When Tobias realized that he had seemingly lost his abilities, he gave up. He fell onto his face, openly and loudly sobbing, his body shaking and his hands scratching at his head. The men above him watched with grim faces. Tobias' sobbing quieted when he realized he could hear speaking, speaking he shouldn't have been able to hear.

"Put more sedatives in that one's food." One of the armoured women were speaking to one of the Guardsmen. "He's strong, stronger than many of the others. Keep him quiet, and if he doesn't eat, force the food into him."

Tobias realized his powers hadn't completely abandoned him. He stopped his mourning, tucking away his feelings, deep down inside of himself, as he had learned to do from a young age. He rose, limped over to the bars, and sat, leaning back against the cold metal. He thought to himself, "if they're trying to drug me into submission, they're going to have one helluva fight doing it." He closed his eyes, and tried to rest.

Suddenly, the lights started flashing rapidly, at different speed and colors, and the noise level intensified. A gate, one tucked into each wall, opened, and two armored amazon women came out of each gate. They started at the prisoners, brandishing huge guns, and pushing people left and right. They herded the prisoners randomly towards the four different gates, splitting any obvious groupings of prisoners.

Tobias was yanked up to his feet by one of the women. They were even more impressive up close, standing many feet taller than most men, and they were beautiful, but Tobias could tell, they had no heart for men. He was thrown into the jumble of prisoners being pushed through one of the gates, and immediately was pushed around in the chaos.

As the throng made it through the gate, they came into what appeared to be another holding cell, identical to the last, and three more groups of people came in through three other gates. Tobias realized what this was. The strobe lights, which gave him a headache, the noise, which pounded into his ears painfully and mercilessly, and the prisoner transfer from one cell to the other. It was an attempt to keep the Psyker prisoners awake and uncomfortable, to keep them from getting any rest or relaxation. It was working.

Once all of the prisoners had been pushed into the new cell, they were ordered to sit, and keep their hands on their laps. Men wearing dirty uniforms came in, pushing carts loaded with small trays. They started handing out the trays to the prisoners, one at a time. When Tobias was given his tray, he examined the meagre amount of food laid out. A small crust of bread, a tiny bowl of cold, mushy stew, and half of a wrinkled carrot.

The man who handed Tobias his food stood over him, and commanded him, "Eat." Tobias looked down at the food, and then up to the man, and said, "I'm not very hungry, sir." The man's eyes bulged and he leaned down into Tobias' face, and said, slowly and quietly. "Eat. Your. Food."

Tobias knew that eating the food would make it much more difficult to recover enough to use his powers, but he had no choice, and given the situation, recovery was all but impossible. He picked up the dry carrot, and took a bite, the dirty vegetable crunched in his mouth, lacking any moisture. He needed liquid to wash it down, so he tried a bite of the mush. It was salty, and tasted horrid. He looked at the man, who was staring daggers into Tobias, and asked, "Could I have some water, please, sir?" Without hesitation the man spat in Tobias' face.

Tobias ducked his head down, and choked down his food. The man took his tray, and then once all the trays were collected, the serving men took the cart out, and were followed by the amazon women. The gates closed, and the noise level dropped back down to an annoying drone, and the lights returned to an unnatural dim.

Tobias started to feel sick, and he knew it was the food that had done it. He curled into a ball, huddled on the cold metal deck, and a tear fell from his eye.

The process of being moved from one cell to the other, the lights flashing, and the noise level shrieking, was a common occurrence. It seemed to happen at random times, and it kept Tobias from being able to get any real sleep. Sometimes they would move, and Tobias would settle down, and try to sleep, but almost immediately the gates would open and they would be moved again.

Sometimes the move took what seemed like days. On those occasions it seemed like they had been forgotten, like they would sit in their cells forever, and eventually all die. Those were the few times the move was welcomed by the prisoners.

They weren't fed every time they were moved, and it seemed like a very random feeding schedule to Tobias. The food they were given was never good, and it always left Tobias feeling groggy, sick, and confused. The extra sedative that he knew was in his food made sure of that.

The prisoners didn't know how long they had been in their cells. There was no way to tell time, and often they wondered if they had been in there for years, or if it had only been a few days. Tobias had tried to use the move from one cell to another as a sort of time keeping system, but it was so unreliable and random that he quickly gave it up. After a long time in the cells, a universal way of keeping track of time was developed by an unknown prisoner. Every time the men came with their carts, and their drugged food, the prisoners knew another day had passed.

At first Tobias didn't like the system his fellow Psykers had developed, because that would mean that they had been imprisoned for two to three years, and he didn't want to believe it had been that long. Not to mention the system was completely unreliable, but it was better than nothing. He eventually gave in, and began referring to the feedings as days, just like everybody else.

Tobias was forgetting things. It had been so long since he had seen his room, since he had seen the town, and his homestead. The smell of grass, and clean farm air, was so distant in his mind. The only sure smell Tobias could remember was the smell of hundreds of dirty prisoners.

He could remember his father's face; or, was that the feeding man? It was so hard to concentrate with all the distractions. Tobias was freshened by a quick burst of frustration. He tried to tap into it, to drag himself out of his zombie state, but it faded too quickly. He fell back to sorrow and depression. There was only one face Tobias wanted to remember. Tears forced their way through his closed eyelids as Tobias finally admitted to himself, that he couldn't remember Veronica's face.

It was in this moment that Tobias gave up completely. He stopped trying to remember. He stopped caring. He succumbed to the pain, and the lights, and the drone. He became like those around him. He sat, stood, moved, and ate with his fellow prisoners. He acknowledged being fed as one day passing.

Tobias was a prisoner on the Black Ship for four years before the Imperialis Regalis made it back to Holy Terra. The ship had picked up hundreds of Psykers from planets all around the sector. They were to be brought to Earth, and their life force sacrificed to the Almighty Emperor. None of this was known to the prisoners, in fact they didn't even know they were on Terra, the Capital Planet of the Empire.

Tobias woke up refreshed. He was lying in a brightly lit room, on a comfortable bed. He realized with sudden clarity that he could think again. He sat up, and examined his surroundings. The room was octagonal, with huge windows on all but one of the eight facings. From out these windows, Tobias could see for miles. He stood and walked to one of them. He was so high up that he couldn't even see the ground. Spires and towers were built all around, with massive bridges spanning from one tower to the other. The sky was full of traffic, hover vehicles flying from one destination to another.

Tobias brought himself back to the room, and once again took it in. The bed he had woken from was placed in the center, and on either side were tables with various gadgets that Tobias couldn't make heads or tails of. A noise off to the side startled Tobias, and he turned quickly to face it.

The culprit was a floating skull, loaded with mechanical wiring. A red servo controlled eye was mounted onto it, and the eye clicked as it turned. The skull turned around and flew up into a pipe built into one of the corners. Tobias was confused. He had never seen anything like it. In fact, this whole situation was confusing. This much industry, this many buildings, the tower he was housed in, it was all so unusual to him.

Tobias sat on the bed, and held his head in his hands. He started thinking, which was a relief to him, since it had been so long since he had the will, or mentality, to think. He thought about his house. He thought about his room. He thought about his fort in the woods, one of his favorite forts out of all the ones he had made. He thought about Veronica.

Her smile, her laugh, and the way she perked up whenever Tobias would say something. He smiled as he remembered everything about her. The smile soon faded as he started to realize, once again, that he would never see her again. He would never touch her, never see her, never kiss her ever again, and once again, he wept. He sobbed loudly, as thick tears fell onto his hands, and the floor.

Suddenly, a door opened. Tobias hadn't noticed it before, but it was the eighth wall, the one without the window, which had been a door all along. Into his room walked a gnarled man. The man was bent low, and he was wearing a white toga-like robe. Cables and wires went from his spine to the back of his skull. He was holding a staff, on top of which was mounted a two-headed eagle.

The man spoke, in a whiny voice, and said, "Hello, Tobias. Sleep well I hope?"

Tobias was startled. How did this man know his name? Why was he here?

"Who are you? How did I get here?" Asked Tobias.

"My name is of no concern to you, at least not yet. As to how you got here, you were brought here, along with the other powerful Psykers, by members of the Adeptus Sororitas." Replied the man.

"Adeptus... Soror-?" Tobias muttered, confused. The man interrupted him.

"We know about you Tobias. We know how powerful you can become. That is why you were brought here, instead of taken with the rest of the prisoners to the Golden Throne."

Tobias didn't understand. "The Golden Throne? What... What is that? Why are the other Psykers being taken there?"

The man turned, and speaking over his shoulder said to Tobias, "Follow me. I want you to see something." Tobias' questions went unanswered as he followed the man through the door and into an ornate hall. The walls of the hall were adorned with solid gold skulls and arches.

The man walked through another door, and Tobias followed. They were standing on a platform, overlooking an enormous courtyard. A huge black ship, with the words Imperialis Regalis painted onto the side, was ejecting three single file lines of people out of its belly. They shuffled on, being herded by armed Guardsmen, into a massive building, which made the tower Tobias occupied appear puny in size.

"What's happening to them?" Tobias asked.

"They are being sacrificed to the Holy Emperor, to sustain his life force so that his presence may watch over, and protect us." The man said.

Tobias watched, in a combination of horror, and awe. "Why aren't I with them?" He asked.

"You will be trained as a Psyker. Educated in the arts of the Warp. You will be cleansed, and sealed to ensure the taint of Chaos never enters your body. But before you can do that, you must let go of your past. Forget everything. We know about Veronica. We know about your homestead. Anger is a dangerous thing, but it can also become a powerful tool in the right hands. But until we know that you have the strength to contain it, you must forget. Here." The man handed Tobias a pair of binoculars.

"Watch the third column. When you have forgotten, I will be waiting in the room where you woke up. If you decide otherwise... You could always jump." The man turned and left.

Tobias looked through the lenses of the binoculars, the magnification allowed him to see the prisoners perfectly. He turned his attention to the third column of people, and watched them. After a few minutes, he noticed something. One of the prisoners. She was shuffling along, her hair dirty, her clothes ragged. He recognized that hair. The way the woman walked. He kept watching her. She turned her head, and Tobias lowered the binoculars, eyes wide. The woman was Veronica. She had been on the ship with him. But why? She wasn't a Psyker, or, was she?

Suddenly, it all made sense to him. Why she hadn't ignored him. Why people ignored and shunned her as well as him. It wasn't just because he was a Psyker, it was because she was too. Tobias was in shock. He didn't know what to think. He fell to his knees, the pain was too great. He tried to cry, but he couldn't. He tried to be angry, but he just couldn't. He felt betrayed, abandoned, and hopeless.

Tobias stood. He looked at the ship which had brought him here. All of his emotions seemed to drain. He remembered what the man had told him. "You must forget." He turned around, and looked back towards the room. He started walking, and Tobias forgot.

End


End file.
